Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton
Thanks for joining me!
This blog is about the current experiences I am facing and how God is protecting me with his love and mercy.
There are many blessings in life and many struggles. What matters is where we keep our faith and how we respond. I believe each of us has mountain top moments and deep valley moments. Besides, we are only humans in a fallen world. I have been blessed beyond measure with an amazing husband who provides and a beautiful miracle baby, that was an answer to many prayers.
Currently, my journey is filled with a bittersweet mixture of joy and heartache. We were blessed with the birth of our sweet daughter, a true miracle, on February 8th, 2019. Shortly after, a small dime size lump appeared on the right side of my neck. Thinking (or more like hoping) it was because of pregnancy hormones, or the lack of, I decided to wait until the Monday after Easter to go to the doctor to get it checked out.
After many appointments, an ultrasound, and a few biopsies later, it was confirmed that I had stage 3 metastatic melanoma. Many of you reading this may already know most of the details, but this is a way to put in words how this part of my journey fell into place.
Above is the “in a nutshell” version of my story. Below will be a detailed description of God’s miracles throughout my life.
After a crazy, to say the least, childhood, and a rocky road of lifelong lessons, I married the man God placed in my life to always be my rock and constant. He continues daily to teach me things I never realized about myself. Even before we started dating I had been told it would be highly unlikely that I would ever be able to carry a child in the womb. June 2017, we found out we were expecting our 1st baby. By God’s grace, He instilled in me a deeper faith in the miracles only He could perform. Unfortunately for us, but a blessing in Heaven, our baby went to be with Jesus. Through that journey, a lot of healing had started to occur for me. During that time I was fighting in my faith. I talked to God, cried to Him, and even screamed, but never once blamed Him. I just could not comprehend the path He had already laid out for me. Over the course of the next year, we experienced a few chemical pregnancies and I grew deeper in my love for God. Although I was hurt, disappointed, frustrated, and ANGRY, it was never at Him. I did question why, and asked Him to show me the purpose of the pain. June 1st, 2018, God blessed us with a miracle. I had been experiencing symptoms of pregnancy again, super early. That night before I took a pregnancy test, I asked my husband Jacob to pray over us specifically for God to let it pass with no false hope if this was just more hormones, or for God to give us a clear sign if these symptoms were a sign of His miracles. After we said Amen, I took the test and ran out crying to Jacob asking if he could pray again that this sweet baby would be able to be used for God’s glory and be His promise to us!
There was lots of fear from the enemy in the back of my mind. Worry, doubt, but most importantly HOPE, FAITH, and lots of JOY!!! We chose our midwife, who guided us to the doctor who ended up answering so many unanswered questions. At around 32 weeks God’s miracle decided to turn breech. The crazy part of our pregnancy was the miracle of carrying her. I was born with a bicornuate uterus. Which means two uteruses equal to the size of one. It caused a lot of pain growing up because one uterus had no outlet. The other side had lots of scar tissue from past experiences. At the age of 18, I had a surgery that removed the uterus causing all the pain. So that means God’s miracle baby had less space to grow in, and by 32 weeks, having turned breech, she had no way to turn around for a natural birth. On February 8, 2019, we welcomed our sweet baby girl into the world. Our prayer has been that her life will be used for God’s glory.
Just before she was born, Jacob and I were having one of our deep conversations and he said do not be surprised if you feel like you’re being attacked by the enemy. Because he doesn’t like when God’s glory is used as a light in the world. Just before our two-week check-up appointment, I noticed a dime-sized lump on the right side of my neck. We decided instead of getting it checked out right away to just give it some time, because it was probably just from pregnancy hormones. We wanted to focus on healing from a C-section, and enjoying this new bundle of joy!
As I stated above, that started the process of finding out about my cancer. Immediately after being diagnosed, we radically changed my diet, cutting out all sugar except through fruits and vegetables. We stayed as close to an 80% alkaline diet as we could, with nutritional supplements that I had already been on before being diagnosed. Adding supplements to help aid the healing process of this cancer. And taking redox molecules that can help at a cellular level. We then continued on our journey with people placed on our path by God to show us where we were supposed to be, though throughout the time none of it made sense and there were a lot of tears shed and high emotions. Since then we were turned down by many clinics due to being self-pay. I had scheduled surgery with one surgeon, only to have that door swiftly closed and the surgery canceled. And God led us to the oncologist and surgeon we have now.
On June 14, 2019, we met with the surgeon, who had spoken with my oncologist. He told us he had never suggested this before, but felt led to tell us to try the targeted medications that my oncologist had wanted me to start taking after surgery was completed. The surgeon wanted me to start the medication right away, on top of all of my health and nutritional stuff, and with God’s grace see if we could get the tumors to shrink so that surgery wouldn’t have so many of the complications that we were being warned about. God was able to shine His light, because within four days the tumor shrank by half its size. As of today, July 10, 2019, it looks like the tumor was never even there. Both doctors and their nursing staff are astounded by this result in treatment.
We are still a long way from over. And God has a lot of healing and miracles he wants to show the people around us! God has bestowed many blessings to us through the love and grace of many people from all over. Some that we have never even met. It is through others that we may experience His love, and truly see how He can move the mountains in front of us that we may be worried about in all of our trials. He has blessed us with lots of love and support during this time and I know He will continue to provide for the needs we have yet to cross on this journey. Throughout this trial, I am constantly reminded that —
“God has not promised peace without pain, joy without sorrow, nor the sun without rain. But he did promise us strength for the day, Grace for the trials, and a light for the way.” ~Unknown